AP Photo/Robert F. Bukaty Supporters of Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump clamor for autographs a rally Wednesday, June 29, 2016, in Bangor, Maine. rules-logo-109.jpeg W hat ails democracy, and who is to blame? Faced with the disruptive impulses that have given rise to Donald Trump and more recently to Great Britain’s disastrous exit from the European Union, a chorus of commentators has laid the blame not on out-of-touch elites, but on average voters. The real problem, we hear, is not that economic and political systems have concentrated power in the hands of too few, but that voters have too much sway over the process. In a widely-circulated New York Magazine article last month, Andrew Sullivan blamed a “hyperdemocracy” born of ever-expanding freedom and egalitarianism for the rise of Trump. The danger of “democratic wildfires” was precisely what led the Founding Fathers to establish checks and balances in the form of tightly circumscribed voting rights, the Electoral...

Undisclosed political spending is both more pronounced and more influential at the state and local level than it is in federal elections, concludes a new report by the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University’s School of Law.

Also on the rise in state elections is what the report calls “gray money”—money that moves from one outside spending group to another, and can’t be immediately traced. Many political committees that are technically required to disclose their donors simply report receipts from other PACs or outside groups, the report found, obscuring the original funding source.

The biggest source of undisclosed “dark” money is politically active tax-exempt groups, which operate outside the disclosure rules, and whose expenditures have exploded since the Supreme Court’s 2010 Citizens United ruling to lift all limits on independent political spending. The report focused on six states—Alaska, Arizona, California, Colorado, Maine, and Massachusetts—where fully transparent outside spending plummeted from 76 percent in 2006 to merely 29 percent in 2014.

One of the biggest jumps was in Arizona, where undisclosed spending spiked from $600,325 in 2010 to $10.3 million in 2014. The report cites numerous examples of big-spending outside groups that wielded disproportionate influence on local decision-making involving such matters as electricity rates, rent control, and environmental regulations. In Arizona, for example, a state initiative to subsidize energy efficiency through solar panels was weakened after the state’s largest utility poured $3.2 million into ads whose funding source was undisclosed.

“For a relative pittance—less than $100,000—corporations and others can use dark money to shape the outcome of a low-level race in which they have a direct stake,” wrote Lee and Brennan Center deputy director Lawrence Norden in a New York Times op-ed unveiling the report.

The report underscores the overwhelming influence that unrestricted and often undisclosed outside spending wields in elections, despite speculation that big money may not matter so much given the millions that many high-dollar super PACs spent fruitlessly on losing primary hopefuls in this presidential race.

The Brennan Center report, titled “Secret Spending in the States,” points to one bright spot amid the rise in undisclosed political spending: the success of state disclosure laws, most notably in California. State efforts to improve political disclosure have rung alarm bells among conservatives, who argue that such efforts are designed to chill speech and will subject donors to harassment and intimidation. But Lee argues that disclosure laws in California and elsewhere strike a proper balance.

“It is possible to require transparency across the board,” says Lee, “but have reasonable accommodations for speakers who can show they have a genuine reason to be fearful.”

Rex Features via AP Images Donald Trump seaks at the Trump SOHO Hotel in New York City, June 22, 2016 rules-logo-109.jpeg U nder normal circumstances, the barrage of ethics attacks that Donald Trump leveled at Hillary Clinton this week might have given the former Secretary of State pause. In what he had billed as a major speech Wednesday, Trump called Clinton a “world-class liar,” accused her of running the State Department “like her own personal hedge fund,” and assailed her for making millions off speeches to Wall Street banks, lobbyists, CEOs, and foreign governments. Liberally citing Peter Schweitzer’s controversial book Clinton Cash , Trump ticked off companies that he said had won special favors from the State Department because of massive payments to Bill Clinton and the Clinton Foundation. But Trump’s is anything but a normal presidential campaign, and Clinton essentially shrugged off his attacks, saying in a speech on Wednesday: "Donald Trump uses poor people around the world...

Albin Lohr-Jones/Sipa via AP Images A vigil rally was organized by the Office of NYC Public Advocate Letitia James in Brooklyn's Grand Army Plaza near Prospect Park held for the victims of the Orlando Pulse nightclub mass shooting committed by Omar Mateen on June 12th which left 49 dead and dozens wounded, in Brooklyn, New York, USA on June 14, 2016. rules-logo-109.jpeg W as the mass shooting in an Orlando gay club by a self-proclaimed jihadist a hate crime or a terrorist act? The label affixed to the tragic violence that left 49 people dead Sunday matters greatly to politicians, lobbyists, and organizers all over the ideological map. To LGBT advocates, in particular, the notion that an anti-gay attack during Pride Week should trigger intensive debate over guns and homeland security, while sweeping hate crimes under the rug, adds insult to injury. “I think it’s incredibly distressing that LGBT people are being ignored,” said Sarah Warbelow, legal director of the Human Rights Campaign...